*tapes up crow's feet with sticky tape*
i'm not old, saffi... thank you :wink:
ok so this is a good time to start talking about my latest issew... settling or not.
i know that catherine and ro have good an auto-sleep thing going when ro hits the cot. and some of you seem to have the luxury of the baby just going to sleep...
i have always wandered around with james, even when he was fresh from hospital i walked around with him until he went to sleep. the dang thing is that i secretly love him falling asleep in my arms. we do a sort of commando thing to lower him into his big cot but he's always been a great sleeper at night.
our carrying and rocking has not made him dependent on it overnight or any such thing. it's like his circadian rhythm was dead-right straight away and he knew night from day.
fast forward to now and nearly 7.5kg, it is hard on the ol' back to rock him (even with the new-fangled fitball device) and i feel a pressure to get him to 'learn' to put himself to sleep.
this morning i just watched for tired signs, wrapped him, put him the cot and patted/soothed with dummy, rolled him to 45 degrees with a blankie wedge (as he likes in the daytime) and off he went to sleep for 3 whole hours. he also fell asleep in his pram this morning and all was well.
this afternoon, dear god, things were not good. after his tired signs, i wrapped him (only lower half now) and put him in the cot. there was the old leg pull up, so i burped him and let him park a chuckasui on my top. back to cot... squirm, grunt, carry-on.... change nappy... back to cot... wah wah... blah blah... on and on... HUNGRY it took so long.
so i fed him... he passes out on boob - evidently this is bad according the self-soothing crowd. put him in cot... stays asleep for 15 minutes. another almost two hours go by of me trying to pat, soothe etc him to sleep. nope. awake. 4 hours (in total) of awake time for a tiny boy. baaaaaad. HUNGRY again.
fed him, turn him upright to burp him and he flops like silly putty - totally unconscious. i look blankly at DH and he just says... just put him to bed, "f#ck the shower". so now he's asleep.
i'm stumped. my instincts (though perhaps misguided) tell me to cuddle my baby to sleep whenever i want, even if my back and neck hurts. my brain says, 'he can learn to sleep when he's tired and put in the cot'.
it breaks my heart when those giant tear-filled blue eyes look at me like i've stabbed him because i'm not holding him and bouncing him to sleep.
DH and i are as clueless as each other. he cracked me up before when he said, "look, i don't know, i'm a bad parent". ROFPMSL.
so what the hell am i to do? keep going with rocking, in the interests of having my wonderful sleeper overnight and (mostly) by day (and possibly risk rocking an 80kg 15 year old on day), or do i try and re-teach him with just picking him up till he's calm then soothing him back in the cot.
i almost feel annoyed at myself for changing the status quo at all. yeah, it hurts physically but at least i don't feel bad.
gah.
am i over-thinking this?
perhaps i'm hungry.
discuss.
(not the hungry part).
thanks.
*closes door*
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